Original article
Low-income neighborhood barriers and resources for adolescents’ physical activity

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2004.02.027Get rights and content

Abstract

Purpose

To investigate factors of low-income neighborhoods and households on physical activity with a sample of adolescents from low-income neighborhoods.

Methods

Middle-school-aged youth (n = 74) from a low-income neighborhood completed self-report surveys. Measures include vigorous exercise frequency, neighborhood hazards, after-school time demands, availability of facilities, quality of facilities, and perceived safety. Hierarchical multiple linear regression and Pearson product moment correlations were conducted to test hypotheses that more frequent physical activity would be associated with more available locations, better quality facilities, fewer time demands, more after-school programs, more perceived safety, and more hazards.

Results

Results indicate that more physical activity was associated with more hours spent in after-school programs (r = .50, p < .001) and perception of higher quality of local facilities (r = .28, p < .05). Perception of safe adults at local facilities accounted for more variance than perception of neighborhood hazards in the association with physical activity even after accounting for gender, age, and socioeconomic status.

Conclusions

Future health promotion programs should consider factors of after-school programs such as quality, cost, and presence of safe adults when attempting to increase and maintain youth physical activity in lower income areas.

Section snippets

Low-income context for neighborhood resources

In large, predominantly middle-class samples of adolescents, researchers have found that access to play spaces and equipment have been associated with higher rates of physical activity [3], [4]. Further, minority youth, who are more likely to live in low-income neighborhoods, have reported that fewer convenient facilities are available to them [10]. Low-income neighborhoods may be less likely to have available facilities/locations that facilitate physical activity, such as parks, schoolyards,

Low-income household factors

Household factors may create barriers for adolescents to engage in higher rates of physical activity. Sallis and colleagues reported in 1996 that Anglo youth were twice as likely as minority youth to take after-school physical activity classes [10]. This finding may suggest that lower income households, wherein minorities are more likely to be overrepresented, may encounter barriers to participating in after-school programs. These barriers may include availability of after-school programs, cost

Hypotheses

The present study will examine the relationship between low-income neighborhood and household barriers and resources on adolescents’ physical activity. Lower socioeconomic status has been associated with less adolescent physical activity; however, there is still much to learn about how low-income environments specifically affect physical activity frequency. Previous studies have not explored the impact of quality and cost of facilities, perception of safety of facilities, and after-school time

Study design

The study is a cross-sectional survey design. Adolescents (n = 74) between the ages of 10 and 16 years were recruited from a local middle school (80% of sample) and from local community centers (20% of sample) in a mid-sized city in the southwestern United States. The median family income in the neighborhood area where youth were recruited is under $14,000, with approximately 39% single female-headed households and 80% economically disadvantaged households based on Department of Housing and

Descriptives

Demographic sample characteristics are included in Table 1. The average number of days of self-reported vigorous physical activity was M = 3.53 days (SD = 2.70) with a 0–7 range; 58.9% of respondents were engaging in 3 days or more of vigorous physical activity. The average perceived socioeconomic status was M = 2.48 (SD = .71) with a range from 0–4 (0 = my family’s income is somewhat less than others, 4 = my family’s income is somewhat more than others.

Demographic differences

Student’s t-test analyses indicate that

Discussion

The purpose of this study was to investigate youths’ perception of lower income neighborhood and household barriers and resources for physical activity. Generally, lower socioeconomic status youth were more likely to report less physical activity, consistent with previous research [6], [9], [10]. The results indicate that the hypotheses were partially supported. As hypothesized, more vigorous physical activity was associated with more hours in after-school programs and perception of better

Conclusions

The current study indicates that low-income neighborhood factors, such as perception of lower quality of facilities and inability to pay facility fees, were barriers to youth engaging in more frequent physical activity. Additionally, the perception of more safe adults at local facilities was associated with higher frequency of physical activity among youth. Youth who participated in after-school programs were more likely to report more frequent vigorous physical activity. The results extend the

Acknowledgement

This study was funded by The University of Arizona, College of Social and Behavioral Sciences Small Grant awarded to Dr. Romero.

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